Smoky Valley Arts and Folklife Center explores the connections between two regional artists. The exhibition, “In Connection With,” features the art of Geraldine Craig and Nelson Smith. The exhibition opens July 4 and continues through July 27, with a closing reception on Sunday, July 27, 2:00-4:00pm. The artists will give a gallery talk at 2:30 p.m.
Craig says her mixed-media work is best understood through the lens of textiles with the idea of cloth as a second skin, site for memory, a threshold where language meets the world. “The non-elite materials and abstracted images in many traditional textiles are a significant visual language and art inspiration for me,” says Craig. Craig’s research-based creative practice explores the relationship between textile history and contemporary art. She founded The Earl Project, a community program for veterans inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry and received the Artistic Innovations Grant (Mid-America Arts Alliance & National Endowment for the Arts, 2018-19) for the project. In 2018, she also completed a thirty-feet long mixed media art commission for University of Kansas Medical School-Salina with Smith. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, and in Thailand, Morocco, England, Mexico, and Japan. Smith creates painted diagrammatic languages from observed phenomena and relationships. The diagrams are either superimposed into the surface of a drawing or painting or are presented in dialog as a separate panel. “Whether it is the lines of tangled wires or stacks of dead trees, there is a story being told within the image that my diagrams attempt to extract,” says Smith. Smith has been awarded four state Michigan Council for the Arts Individual Artist Grants, the national Art Matters grant, several artist residencies including a Residency Fellow at Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ireland, Oregon College of Art and Craft, Senior Artist in Residence, New Works Residency at Harvestworks, New York City, Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, and many other honors and commissions. His paintings are included in many significant public and private collections including the Museum of Modern Art’s Artist Book Archive, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and University of Kansas Medical School. For over 20 years Nelson worked as an art director and designer for several advertising firms and through his own Obscure Studios. Nelson was an art educator for over 25 years at several higher education institutions in Detroit and Kansas, including Bethany College in Lindsborg. Craig and Smith are the co-founders/co-directors of the Mother’s Milk Art Residency in a reimagined dairy farm in Newton, Kansas. Smoky Valley Arts & Folklife Center, a volunteer-run organization, is located at 114 1/2 S. Main Street. Hours of operation are Friday-Sunday, 1:00-5:00pm. SVAFC is supported by the Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission, National Endowment for the Arts, the McPherson County Community Foundation, and the Raymer Society. |
